Elmer Durgin’s sudden financial windfall is uncovered through detective work commissioned by John Storrow, giving Mike Noonan and Storrow concrete grounds to challenge the lawyer’s credibility in the custody fight. Durgin’s payments and purchases turn an abstract suspicion into a trail of material evidence: he has paid off debts, caught up on child support for seven children, and bought a large twin-outboard boat. The revelation shifts the balance of confidence toward Mike and Storrow, though the evidence presented here does not itself establish where Durgin obtained the money or how a court will respond.

The Investigation

The news reaches Mike by telephone on a Thursday night, while he sits before a muted baseball game. His thoughts are elsewhere: on Sara Tidwell, Son Tidwell, and Son’s young son, as well as Storyville and his pregnant dead wife. Against this private background, Storrow calls with what he considers wonderful news about the investigation he has set in motion.

Storrow credits Romeo Bissonette, who found a detective named George Kennedy. Kennedy shares his name with the actor, but Storrow stresses that there is nothing unusual about his professional competence: he is good, fast, and capable enough, in Storrow’s estimation, to work in New York. Kennedy’s regular employment is with a security firm; detective work is his moonlighting job. Storrow is impressed that he gathered most of the findings by telephone, a detail that makes the discovery sound both efficient and unexpectedly complete.

The Financial Trail

The central finding is that Durgin’s finances have changed markedly since late May. According to Storrow’s account of Kennedy’s work, Durgin has paid off his car and his camp at Rangely Lakes, and has caught up on roughly ninety years of child-support obligations. The figure initially sounds absurd to Mike, who blurts out that nobody pays child support for ninety years. Storrow answers that seven children make the accumulation possible; their ages range from fourteen to three.

The exchange turns financial evidence into comic astonishment. Mike has been picturing Durgin’s pudgy, self-satisfied face, cupid-bow mouth, and carefully polished-looking nails, and resists the idea that he has seven children. Storrow confirms it, then breaks into helpless laughter over the scale of Durgin’s parental history. Mike catches the laughter and joins him over the long-distance call. The comedy does not erase the investigative point: a man with a small-town practice has suddenly met a substantial set of obligations and cleared debts that had presumably remained outstanding.

The new boat makes the pattern harder to dismiss as a single overdue bill being settled. Storrow adds that Durgin bought a large twin-outboard boat two weeks earlier. Together, the paid-off car, the cleared camp debt, the child-support payments, and the boat purchase establish a sequence of notable financial activity beginning in late May. The evidence identifies the transactions and their timing, but does not disclose the source of the funds.

What the Discovery Means

Storrow’s excitement comes not simply from Durgin’s spending but from the vulnerability the spending may expose. He asks Mike whether he understands what matters, and Mike does: he sees Durgin’s apparent foolishness, while also thinking of Devore. Storrow understands that Mike is referring to both men at once. The call therefore links the discovery to a broader contest in which Durgin’s conduct may compromise the side relying on him.

Storrow describes Durgin as a little lawyer from a little township in the big woods of western Maine, unlikely to have anticipated that a well-resourced guardian angel would investigate him. That description emphasizes the imbalance between Durgin’s provincial circumstances and the investigative resources brought to bear. The windfall, whatever its origin, has left a visible trail that Kennedy can report and that Storrow can use; Durgin’s own apparent failure to conceal it becomes a liability.

The Reversal in Confidence

Storrow announces that the contest is over, comparing their position to a home team scoring nine runs in the bottom of the ninth and winning the pennant. His sports metaphor converts the financial findings into a decisive-seeming reversal. Mike answers cautiously, but his hand closes into a loose fist and knocks on the solid wooden coffee table. The gesture reveals that Storrow’s confidence has reached him even as he avoids openly celebrating the result.

The call’s exuberant laughter and its evidence of Durgin’s money move in counterpoint. On the surface, the conversation is a comic exchange about an improbably large child-support backlog and a lawyer’s many children; beneath it, each newly disclosed payment helps Storrow believe that the opposing legal position can be brought down. The discovery is a tactical gain rather than a reported judicial outcome: the scene establishes their renewed confidence, not a final ruling in the custody case. Storrow closes by saying that the softball game was not a total loss, extending the sense that an apparent setback has yielded something useful.